Saturday, December 7, 2013

THE SOUND OF MUSIC – A CD Review

I haven’t seen
this TV production yet (that’s what happens when you live in Portugal) but this
new recording of the famous score by Rodgers & Hammerstein can’t be compared
with the fantastic movie soundtrack starring Julie Andrews, with which I fell
in love at an early age. That doesn’t mean this isn’t good, but I missed Julie
Andrews and the luxurious orchestrations from the movie, plus one of my
favorite songs from the movie, “I Have Confidence”.

When I heard that
a country singer would play the role of Maria I expected the worst, but Carrie
Underwood has a nice voice and doesn’t try to imitate Julie Andrews. At first,
her rendition of the title song sounds kind of strange, but than we warm to it.
For me, her best moment is with “The Lonely Goatherd”.

The producers had
the good idea of surrounding Carrie with several stage names and it worked.
Audra McDonald is terrific as Mother Abbess and I just wish the other Sisters,
Christian Noll, Jessica Molaskey and Elena Shaddow, had more singing time;
their “Maria” hit all the right notes. In the supporting roles of Max and Elsa,
Christian Borle and Laura Bennanti have an enjoyable time with “How Can Love
Survive?” and “No Way To Stop It”, two songs that were cut from the movie
production. As Captain Von Trapp, Stephen Moyer doesn’t shine in his songs, but
the same can be said about Christopher Plummer in the movie. Finally, Michael
Campayno and Ariane Rinehart had a good time with “Sixteeen Going on Seventeen”

Although I always
liked this score, this isn’t by far Rodgers & Hammerstein best work, but
it’s their most famous one. It’s true, this television soundtrack isn’t the
best rendition of the score, but even so it’s a nice way for the new
generations to discover it and maybe it’ll get them interested in other
musicals. The fact is this SOUND OF MUSIC sounds better than I expected!